The Anna James Adventures Vol 1 - When I Was a Little Girl
by calgarry
Summary: This is the first in a series about Anna James (OC), the Doctor's new companion. This story is mainly setting the scene for the rest of the series to come. Set during the Clara era, with the eleventh doctor and the latest TARDIS; however it does not feature Clara. Reviews are greatly appreciated. This story is helpful if you want to understand the rest of the series.
1. Prologue

My name is Anna James. I'm twenty-two years old. I come from Nottingham, in the UK. I have a fiery temper, and what has been described as a bubbly personality.

In my lifetime so far, I have battled creatures from faraway lands, hung off buildings, met immortal people, fired guns, jumped out of aeroplanes, and helped to defeat beings that would destroy the whole universe in a flash – literally.

I have been lucky enough to travel with the greatest being in the whole of the universe, in everything that ever has been and ever will be. He is brave, funny, quirky, and even slightly sexy at times. Wise, yet clueless. Old, yet young. Brave, yet scared.

And if you are reading this, it means you are lucky enough to be able to read about this man.

I'm Anna James, and this is my story.


	2. When I was a little girl

**_When I was a little girl,_**

A lonely young girl sits in the swing, staring at the abandoned playground. The place is not well cared for, there is grass growing through the slide and moss on the roundabout. The climbing frame has become a dwelling place for climbers, the plant kind rather than the human kind.

There are other children her age, but none of them want to talk to the girl. They think she is weird, strange, different. They don't like her mother, because she yells at them for kicking their soccer balls too high in the park. They don't like her.

Anna sighs and gets ready to go home. She is getting off the swing when there is a strange noise from behind her. She spins around to see a large blue box standing in the middle of the park as if it has always been there. But she knows for certain that it wasn't there five minutes ago.

She walks slowly, hesitantly, up to the box. It looks like a phone booth, the ones her mother won't let her go in for fear of strangers' germs entering her system (whatever that means).

While Anna watches, a man stumbles out of the box and coughs. He is wearing a suit and bowtie, and looks confused. He looks up and sees Anna staring at him, and he smiles and gives her a little wave, still looking confused.

Anna walks over to the man and stares at him. She slowly reaches up and touches his bowtie, to see if it is real. It is. She then reaches up to his face, poking his pointy chin. It is also real. He smiles at her, and she frowns at him.

"Who are you?"

"I'm the Doctor."

"Doctor Who?"


	3. I had an imaginary friend

**_I had an imaginary friend;_**

The mysterious Doctor smiled and winked at her. "Just the Doctor," he said. "Who are you?"

"Anna James," the girl replied promptly, the frowned. "Are you a stranger?"

"No, why?"

"That's good. My mother said I'm not supposed to tell a stranger my name, and I just told you."

"That's funny, I'm not supposed to tell strangers my name either!" The pair laughed, then the man grew serious. "I take it from your accent that I'm not in London?"

Anna gave him a funny look. How could he not know where he was? "No," she said slowly, "you're in Nottingham."

"Ah. And what day of the week is it?"

"It's a Saturday. On Saturdays, I'm supposed to go out and play with my friends. My mother said so. It's in her book on being a good mother. But I don't have any friends, and I tell her and she doesn't believe me. So I go and play by myself."

"Well, now, we can't have that! Would you like me to be your friend?"

The girl beamed, her smile stretching from ear to ear. "Yes, please, Doctor!"

At that point she heard clock chiming in the distance, signalling four o'clock. "Oh, no! I need to go home now, else Mother will be worried," Anna garbled, starting to head off, waving at her new friend.

"Wait!" he called after her. "What's your address?"

She rattled off her address to the Doctor without a second thought, then turned around and started to run home. It was only when she turned onto her street that she realised it might not have been a good idea to tell him where she lived. Ah well, she thought, if I don't tell Mother then it won't matter.

Anna was greeted at home by her fussing, over-protective mother who checked her clothes and hair and temperature. After deciding that her daughter does not have a cold from being out five minutes longer than usual, her mother gave Anna her tea, organic stewed vegetables and baked chicken, and packed her off to bed before six o'clock.

Anna lay in bed, bored and unable to sleep. The light streaming through her curtains only made things worse, so she got up to shut them. As she returned to bed, she heard _the_ noise coming from outside.

_Vworp, vworp. Vworp, vworp._

She span around and rushed back to the window. Lo and behold, there was the box again, in her very own garden! Anna slipped out of her bedroom and ran down the stairs without a moment's hesitation, carefully avoiding the creaky third step. She crept through the kitchen and slipped out the back door, emerging in the garden. She ran past the immaculately-kept plants and arrived at the box. She knocked on the door and the Doctor, her new friend, emerged from within. He shut the door quickly behind him, not letting her see what was inside.

"Anna!" he greeted her warmly. How are you?"

She ignored him. "What's that?" she inquired, pointing at the box.

"That? That's the TARDIS."

"What's that?"

"It's a spaceship."

He sat down on a bench, and Anna sat down next to him. He started to tell her stories of magical lands he had visited in his spaceship, with wild and wonderful creatures. She didn't believe all of it, but he was a wonderful storyteller, and before she knew it she had drifted off to sleep.

She woke up in her own bed with a smile on her face. She was happy all day, waiting for the Doctor's next visit.

The Doctor came back to visit Anna that night, and the next night, and the night after that, and the night after that. She got into the habit of pretending to be asleep for the three times in the night when her mother checked on her, then lying awake until the _vworp, vworp_ noise of the box he called the TARDIS reached her ears. Usually he would appear in her room, but sometimes he would be in the sitting room, sometimes in the garden, and once in the kitchen.

Each time the Doctor came to visit her, they would sit down and talk. He would tell her about strange, faraway lands, with glowing blue fruit, and people whose faces looked like they had noodles hanging out of their mouths, and mountains made of soft cushion-like rock that was very comfortable to sleep on. In return, she would tell him about her days, her school and teachers and the other people in her class. She couldn't tell him about friends; he was her only friend, and she lived each day waiting for that night, when he would appear in his strange box. Each conversation they had took her away from her dull life and into the light.

Every night, as he left, the Doctor would tell Anna that she could one day come with him in his TARDIS, and they would fly away and go and see the queen, any queen she wanted. They could go and see her great-great-grandfather if she wanted to, of her great-great-granddaughter. And every day she lived waiting for him to keep his promise and whisk her away.

That day never came for little Anna James.

One night, she waited for him. And waited. And waited some more. But he never came. She sat up in her bed all night, but the TARDIS never appeared. She was alone.

She waited for him for the next few nights, in her bed and out in the garden and in the kitchen and in the sitting room and even in the bathroom, but he never came.

Her Doctor had gone.

And Anna James had lost her only friend.


	4. And when I grew up

**_And when I grew up,_**

Anna James sat on her bed, listening to the song in her head. It was a good song, with a beat that she could nod her head to. It made her look silly, but she didn't care. She didn't care anymore. Everything was in her head now, the song, the voices, the people. The hope.

The Doctor.

Anna stood up and stretched. She walked over to her window and looked at the depressing view outside. Grey concrete walls, a grey courtyard. Grey sky over a grey world. Everything was grey now. Grey and in her head. Even her clothes were grey, a grey tank top with grey sweats and grey socks. Not shoes, but socks. Shoes were too dangerous.

Her hair was tied up with a grey bandanna, the dull colour contrasting with her bright red hair. The hair which was the only colour in her life, the only thing that reminded her that there was colour in the world.

From this angle, Anna could just see the large sign over the gate. 'Nottingham Royal Mental Institution' She sighed and turned away from the window. Same old view, same old sign, same old room, same old life. Nothing ever changed.

She knew now that the things in her head were not real. The voices, the people, even the Doctor. He had never been real, just a fantasy she had made up in her childhood to cope with the fact she had no friends. Anna snorted. Seriously? A man with a bowtie, in a flying box? Her young mind had been strange, she gave it that.

But then came the time she started to take the reality too seriously. She became protective of the Doctor, her imaginary friend. She started to get into fights when people claimed she was stupid, making things up.

Then she told her mother about the Doctor, and that was the end. Fourteen psychiatrists, then this bloody place. Some might say overkill, Anna herself said it several times, but she knew in her heart that her mother had been right. The Doctor was a fantasy, nothing more. And she, Anna James, was mentally unwell. Shut up in this place until she was fit to be seen in public. Which, by the look of things, was never.


	5. He came back

**_He came back._**

Anna stood by the window, gazing out once again. There was a new person across the courtyard from her, a man with blue hair who was replacing the woman who had tried to bite the guards several times. It was the closest thing to gossip she could find in this place. Pity there was no one to share it with.

Outside her door, there was a sound, one she had not heard before in this institution.

_Vworp, vworp. Vworp, vworp._

The sound was unfamiliar yet familiar. It pulled up old memories she had tried to suppress. Suddenly, she realised what it was. "Oh, no," she groaned, grinding her fingers into her ears to try to drown out the sound of the TARDIS materialising. She knew the sound was in her head, but doing this somehow drowned it out.

When she pulled her fingers out of her ears, she found the noise had stopped. There was a pause, then a voice outside.

"Anna? Anna James?"

That voice went with the TARDIS noise like bread and butter. That was the voice of the Doctor.

She closed her eyes and sat down on her bed, wishing for this to go away already, for the voices in her head to disappear. The voice stops, and is replaced by another strange sound, that sounded like a cross between a buzz and a whirr. The sound brought up a picture of a long, thin object with a green light on the end with claws around it. It was used to turn on the kettle, open doors, and turn off a light.

Anna shook her head. None of this was real, none of it! This was imagination gone wild, and she couldn't control it any more. She knew how to stop a vision, but this one wouldn't go away.

The heavy metal (grey) door swung open, and Anna jumped up and stared, open-mouthed. For there, standing in front of her, was the Doctor.

"Hello, Anna," he said, with a grin on his face. "Remember me?"


	6. He's called the doctor

**_He's called the Doctor._**

"D-Doctor?" Anna could not keep her voice from shaking as she spoke the one word she had not allowed herself to say for ages. Months. Years, probably. She spoke again. "Doctor is it you? You're-you're real this time?"

He smiled at her, the sight filling her with warmth. "Of course I'm real. I'm not in your head. Nothing was ever in your head. I've always been real, Anna." He stretched out an arm, inviting her hold his hand. She backed away.

"How do I know you're not lying? Everything else lies, everything else I hear lies to me!" She started to get worked up, waving her arms around in a way that usually made the orderlies rush over and sedate her. Not this time, though. Nobody came, so she kept talking. "All these years, I've been hoping that something was real, but I see now it's not. You were never real, and now I'm in this place because of you. So go away, I don't need you! I don't want you! Go away, Doctor! You're not real!"

She started sobbing, collapsing back onto the bed with her head in her arms on her lap. "Please, just go away," she sobbed. He ignored her and sat down beside her. She was surprised when the bed bent under his weight, but put that down to her hyperactive imagination.

He reached his arm out again. "Go on. Touch me. If you can feel me, that means I'm real, and you're not crazy."

She looked up at him through her tears. "What if I can't feel you?"

"Then I'm not here, and you can put your mind to rest."

She frowned, thinking; then nodded her head. "Alright. I'll try. But when I find out that you're not real, can you please go away?"

He nodded, his face deadly serious. "If you find that I am not here, I will go away and never come back. I promise."

She swallowed, blinking hard, and stretched her hand out. She got closer and closer to his arm, and…


	7. He comes from somewhere else

**_He comes from somewhere else._**

Anna's hand met a cloth sleeve. She frowned and pushed. There was flesh underneath, she could feel it. Her heart began to speed up. The Doctor, her Doctor, was actually a living, breathing, human!

Her eyes narrowed. She began to suspect it might be another trick her mind was playing on her. But then her face relaxed, as she came to a decision. If this was a trick, then she would just play along and when it finished, she would know the Doctor was not real.

And if he was real…that was an added bonus.

She looked up at his face to see him beaming down at her. He was exactly the same way he remembered her, from the chin to the floppy hair to the bowtie. She nodded, and his grin grew even wider, if that was possible.

"Who are you?" she breathed.

"I'm the Doctor. I'm a Time Lord. I'm from the planet Gallifrey in the constellation of Kasterborous. I'm the man from your childhood, from your memories and dreams. And I'm also the man who is going to get you out of this place!"

Anna frowned. "So, you're not from around here then?"

"No, I'm from another planet!"

"You're...you're an alien?"

"I suppose so, yes."

"Alright," she said, "what now?"

He held out his hand to her, and she took it, grasping it firmly inside her own. "Now," he said, "we run!"


	8. He's got a box called the TARDIS

**_He's got a box called the TARDIS_**

Hand in hand, the duo ran out of Anna's room and left down a corridor. At the end, the Doctor wheeled around, dragging Anna with him, and ran back the way they had come. They passed her room, and turned left down another corridor. They ran down some stairs, then up some others. He pushed a lift button, but got tired of waiting and ran off down another corridor.

Eventually, Anna began to slow, running out of strength. "Doctor," she panted, "are you sure you know where you're going?"

"Ooh, I wouldn't go so far as to say that," he replied. "But I know what I' trying to find."

"What?"

"The TARDIS, of course!"

She stopped, and dug in her heels, causing him to stop also. "What is it?" he asked as he let go of her hand.

"You want to find a blue telephone box in a mental institution?" she asked.

"Police box, but that is essentially correct," he automatically corrected her.

"I can help," she cried, and ran to a door to another person's room. She knocked and opened the hatch, poking her head inside. "Blakey?" she said.

"Yeah?" came the reply from within.

"Have you seen a telephone box anywhere around here?"

"Why? You lost one?"

"Might have done, yeah. Have you seen it?"

"Nah, not me. Charlie might have, though, or Maddy."

"Okay, thanks!" she called through the hatch, and pulled her head out again to see the Doctor staring at her, a dumbfounded look on his face. "It's a mental hospital. People aren't gonna ask questions," she said by way of explanation, then was hurrying down another corridor to another door.

"Charlie? You seen a telephone box lying around anywhere? I seem to have misplaced one."

"I ain't seen nothing, but I heard Maddy say something about Harry having said something about a blue box."

"Thanks, that's great!" she yelled.

After several conversations like this, they managed to find Becky, who claimed to have seen it two floors up and a corridor across when she was being taken back to her room by the orderlies.

Anna and the Doctor ran to the place described immediately, to see a blue box being pushed away by two men in uniform. Or rather, they were trying to push it; it seemed to be far heavier than it looked. The Doctor strode up to them, flashing a blank piece of paper at them. "John Smith, Health and Safety," he announced confidently. "What seems to be the trouble with my box, gentlemen?"

The man looked at each other uneasily, until one spoke. "It's in the middle of the corridor, sir, and blocking the way."

"I'll see to it immediately. Just run along, now, and don't worry about it. It'll be gone before you can say, "Geronimo!"

The guards exchanged another look and went in the other direction, having not noticed Anna standing there watching the scene play out with an open mouth. "You're not the only one with tricks up your sleeve, my friend," the Doctor grinned, leaning against the box.

Anna stepped towards the box in wonder. It was the brightest thing she had seen in a year or so, the bright blue contrasting with the overwhelming grey surrounding them. She was gripped by a sudden sense of foreboding that disappeared when the Doctor clicked his fingers and the doors of the box swung open, bathing the pair in a warm light. He bowed slightly and gestured inside.


	9. That's bigger on the inside

**_That's bigger on the inside_**

Anna stepped forwards into the TARDIS for the first time ever, her mouth gaping as she took in one…minor…detail about the box.

The Doctor was hopping around her excitedly. "Go on, say it, you know you want to," he encouraged.

"It's…it's smaller on the outside," she managed to say, and he slumped, disappointed.

"Why can't anybody say that it's bigger on the inside anymore? Why?" he demanded, but she wasn't listening, she was too busy taking in the sight before her eyes.

The small, innocuous box was inside. The décor was green and blue, a welcome sight to her eyes after months and months and months of grey. There was a small bridge across to a platform with a large cylinder, with panels around it that had screens and knobs and levers and bells and whistles and goodness knows what else. There were steps up and down, and everything seemed to be circular. The large cylinder in the middle was pulsing, moving up and down continuously, almost hypnotically.

Anna stood for a long time, drinking it all in, before realising that she still had her mouth open. She shut it and turned to the Doctor. "This…this is amazing!" she managed to say. "Sorry, it's just…had little to no human contact in forever, so I'm no very…this is…wow." she finished lamely.

"It gets better."

"How so?"

"This is not just a box. It is not just a box that is bigger on the inside, or smaller on the outside. It is not even just a box that is bigger on the inside that materialises. It is a _time machine_."


	10. And can travel anywhere in time & space

**_And can travel anywhere in time and space._**

"It is a _time machine_." The Doctor spoke the last words in a dramatic whisper, evidently expecting Anna to be impressed. She was.

"So, I'm standing in a blue telephone box, that's massive inside, and it just happens to be a time machine?"

"Exactly. Not only can it travel in time, it's also a spaceship. You could go anywhere you wanted." As he spoke, the Doctor started fiddling around with some of the knobs and levers, twisting and pulling. The machine in the middle made machine-like noises, but seemed almost responding to his touch.

"I could go to Mexico? I've always wanted to go to Mexico."

"Mexico, sure. The boring old country, Mexico. Or, you could go to a small planet across the galaxy that does great enchiladas. Much better than the ones on Earth, believe me. Or you could go to the planet with the glowing blue fruit. You liked that story, didn't you? Anywhere that takes your fancy, you can go.

"So," the Doctor said, running in front of the middle console and addressing Anna directly, building up to his big finish "anywhere, anywhen, any place in the whole of time and space. Everything that ever was, and ever will be. Where do you want to go?"

Anna considered this for a minute, then grinned. "I want to…I want to go to the first time we met. That was the best point of my life, the time when I realised that I was special. I want to relive that moment, just once. Then I want to see the people with worms on their faces. And the glowing blue fruit. And the bed-rocks. But first – our first meeting."


	11. I ran away with him

**_I ran away with him._**

The Doctor grinned and ran to the console. He pushed a few buttons, and typed something into a keyboard. He beckoned Anna over, and she walked over to him and stared at the screen he was looking at. It was decorated with swirly circles, which he seemed to be reading. Ah well, she thought, not the strangest thing she'd seen that day.

He pulled away from the screen, and took her hand in his own. Then, with a cheeky grin, he placed her hand on a large lever and they pulled it together.

Anna found herself siling, laughing, enjoying herself for the first time in goodness knows how long. In this strange place, the TARDIS, with the man who had been real, then not real, and now real again; in this place, she felt more at home than she ever had.


	12. And we've been running ever since

**_And we've been running ever since._**


End file.
